


For Future Reference

by theputterer



Series: cassian andor nonsense [3]
Category: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016), Star Wars - All Media Types
Genre: Angst, Established Relationship, Existential Crisis, F/M, Fluff and Angst, Foreshadowing, Future Fic, Memories, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-10
Updated: 2017-05-10
Packaged: 2018-10-30 03:05:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,332
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10867737
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theputterer/pseuds/theputterer
Summary: On the one year anniversary of Rogue One, the past collides with the future.Jyn gets a glimpse of the end of the war.And the end of her and Cassian.





	For Future Reference

**Author's Note:**

> Content warning: Discussion of suicidal thoughts

 

 _Tell me where it hurts,_ she'd say. _Stop howling. Just calm down, and show me where._

But some people can't tell where it hurts. They can't calm down. They can't ever stop howling.

-Margaret Atwood, from "The Blind Assassin"

 

* * *

 

Jyn is startled to learn of the one year anniversary of Rogue One.

She is informed of this upcoming event by Leia Organa, who corners her in a corridor on Echo Base one morning, where she proceeds to tells Jyn that the anniversary of the first, and last, flight of Rogue One is in three days’ time, and the Alliance is willing to give Jyn the day off.

“But… why?” Jyn asks, eyeing Leia, as rebel soldiers step past them, their boots crunching through the thin white snow, ever-present on Hoth, so inescapable that the base itself was built into it.

Leia’s expression is calm, and thoughtful, and Jyn doesn’t like it. She prefers Leia when she’s fierce, and angry; her favorite Leia is the Leia who yells at Han Solo in the mess hall, or the main hangar, or anywhere public. She thinks Leia is her most honest self then, and the number one thing Jyn values in her superior officers is honesty.

“To reflect, or to grieve,” Leia says now, so kind, so understanding, and Jyn’s skin is crawling. “Or sleep all day. Whatever you’d like to do. That’s the point of a day off.”

Jyn can’t remember the last time the Alliance gave her the day off. She’s quite certain it’s never actually happened before.

She doesn’t know what to do with it.

It’s not like there’s anywhere to go on Hoth.

“Did you talk to Cassian?” She asks Leia.

“Yes,” Leia says, a knowing look in her eye that Jyn can’t even be bothered to feel embarrassed over. Jyn and Cassian know exactly where they stand with the other. “I gave him the same talk as I’m giving you now. He said he would think about it.”

“Right,” Jyn says, because it’s exactly the kind of answer Cassian has been known to give Leia; polite, diplomatic, thoughtful.

Leia smiles.

“You think about it too, okay?” She suggests. “We’d like to know if you’re taking the day off, or not, twenty-four hours before, but that’s it. You have some time.”

“Okay.”

Leia nods. “Back to work then, Sergeant.”

“Yes, Princess.”

Jyn turns, and darts away, before Leia can add anything else.

* * *

She does think about it.

The Pathfinders are currently in between missions, and so Jyn has been assigned to repair work in the meantime. She doesn’t mind; she likes the work, likes the near-tranquility of it, sequestering herself into a corner of the repair shop on base where she’s left alone, for the most part. Droids do approach her, to ask her questions about her projects, and then sometimes she’s working on a droid and has to speak to it directly. But the bulk of her repair work deals with blasters, because she knows them best, and blasters don’t talk, which Jyn is grateful for.

She uses the general quiet to think.

She is most surprised, she decides, by this all-important anniversary sneaking up on her like this. She’d always assumed she would just become aware of when it was coming up, that part of her would instinctively know, because her life had changed, irrevocably, with Scarif in so many ways.

She’d thought, at the very least, her mind would remember that time it had almost died, and remind her.

There’s another thing, too, she thinks she should’ve remembered.

The anniversary of Rogue One in three days means the anniversary of the death of her father is in two days.

She isn’t sure which event she feels sadder over, and she wonders what this says about her.

Close to dinnertime, her quiet work is interrupted by the sound of footsteps, as someone approaches her corner of the repair shop. She barely glances up, only looking for the boots of the visitor; as she recognizes their shape and color, she returns to her work.

“I’m not done here,” she says, in lieu of any other greeting.

There is no immediate response, save for the visitor putting a hand on her back, and leaning over her, to press a kiss to her head.

“Have dinner with me,” Cassian says.

“You want to talk about what the Princess said.”

“I do,” Cassian confirms. “I’d also like to have dinner with you, and for you to look at me.”

Jyn sighs, setting down the screwdriver in her hand, and turning on the stool to face Cassian directly.

He smiles at her, and she spots snowflakes drying in his dark hair.

“Hi,” he says, and leans down to kiss her, cold hands cupping her face.

She wonders at how he can still steal her breath away with a single kiss.

She realizes that if the anniversary of Rogue One’s first and last flight is in three days, then the anniversary of her and Cassian’s relationship is in about fourteen days.

Sort of. That was when they slept together for the first time, so it’s what Jyn counts as the start.

She’s pretty sure Cassian has a different opinion on this.

“Have you been in here all day?” he asks.

“Not much else for me to do,” she says, shrugging. “Were you in debriefing all day?”

“Mm, and other meetings,” he says, stepping away from her in order to begin putting the tools she’s been using away.

“Hey, I just said I wasn’t done here--”

“You can be, though,” Cassian says, not stopping, carefully returning a small pile of wrenches to their case. “You’re the only one in here, everyone’s already left for the night.”

Jyn scowls. “Yeah, but I was going to take apart a DL-44--”

“You could do that,” Cassian agrees, “Or, you could come back to our room, with me, and eat the Festian stew I made for you.”

“Oh, you… You cooked dinner.”

It is not the first time Cassian has cooked for her, and not even the tenth. But it isn’t something he does very frequently, due to his sporadic schedule, his missions that take him off-base for weeks at a time. Jyn has learned that he usually cooks on days that have some personal significance to him, both good and bad: the birthdays of his parents, and his sister, and Jyn; and the anniversary of the dates his parents, and his sister, and his brother and Taraja died.

She knows that cooking is something he finds comforting, something he does to take his mind off his melancholy.

The fact that he has made dinner today, on a day that is not the anniversary of Rogue One, makes her nervous.

“What happened today?” She asks now.

“What do you mean?”

“It’s the anniversary of something,” she says, and she tries to think of what it might be. The last time he cooked dinner for them was a month ago, on Jyn’s twenty-third birthday.

Cassian looks a little amused, and Jyn’s anxiety increases.

“What?” She snaps.

“Three days from today, it will be a year, exactly, from the day Rogue One flew.”

“I know,” Jyn says, as this is exactly the thing she doesn’t want to talk about.

“What happened three days before Rogue One, Jyn?”

Jyn frowns, and tries to remember.

The days leading up to Rogue One have blurred together into one monolithic being, of very little sleep, loss, desperation, and pain. She remembers the faces of Rogue One astonishingly clearly; Bodhi’s soft brown eyes, Chirrut’s wide smile, Baze’s long hair, K-2SO’s expressionless face that somehow still managed to convey emotion. And she remembers her father, after having not seen him for so long, and the look on his face when he died in her arms.

But that hadn’t happened three days before Rogue One.

She refocuses.

“Wobani,” she says. “Uh. I was on Wobani.”

In the Imperial labor camp.

It isn’t something she likes to think about.

“Well, you’re not wrong,” Cassian says, slowly.

“That’s kind of a weird thing for you to make dinner for, Cass.”

And this seems to break Cassian; he begins to laugh, loudly, enough that Jyn can only stare.

“Oh, Jyn,” he says, laughing still, and he returns his hands to her face, smiling so widely, and Jyn is still so lost. “You’re very cute.”

This doesn’t really feel like an explanation.

“Um… Okay,” Jyn says.

“You’re very cute, but a little obtuse.”

“Hey, wait--”

“One year ago, today, was the day we first met,” Cassian says, and Jyn loses her voice.

She stares at him, stunned.

Because he’s _right_.

She doesn’t know what to say.

“That is why I made us dinner,” Cassian says. “I thought it’d be nice. And I know the stew is your favorite, so…”

“I didn’t,” Jyn starts, and stops. She tries again. “I didn’t, um. Aren’t I supposed to… Get you something?”

“No,” Cassian says, warmly. “All I would like is for you to have dinner with me.”

“Aren’t people supposed to get each other things?”

She wouldn’t know. She’s seen very few long-term relationships in her twenty-three years, was too young to pay attention to her parents to understand how they celebrated their anniversary.

“I would get Taraja flowers,” Cassian tells Jyn now. “But I didn’t really think you’d go for that. I figured you’d prefer the bare minimum of acknowledgment.”

“Which is… Dinner,” Jyn says, and she nods, because good food is definitely more her style than flowers.

“Dinner. And a discussion on if we want to take a day off in three days.”

Jyn groans. “I just want the dinner.”

Cassian laughs. “I know. And we don’t have to talk about it tonight. But we will have to talk about it tomorrow, in order to give Leia and the other leaders enough notice of our decision.”

And Jyn hates avoiding things she’s just going to have to deal with sooner rather than later.

She sighs.

“Let’s do this now,” she says.

Cassian looks surprised. “Really? Now?”

“Now. I don’t want to… I want us to be happy, during dinner, and if we’re talking about Rogue One…”

And Cassian understands. He nods, and then pulls up another stool, to sit in front of her. Their knees brush.

“What are you thinking?” he asks.

“I don’t know what we could do on the day of,” Jyn says. “I feel like… Like I’m going to be thinking about them all day. The fourteen people who died.”

She knows all their names, like they’ve been permanently branded onto the inside of her mind.

Arro Basteren. Yosh Calfor. Eskro Casrich. Farsin Kappehl. Jav Mefran. Ruescott Melshi. Pao. Serchill Rostok. Taidu Sefla. Stordan Tonc.

K-2SO. Bodhi Rook. Chirrut Imwe. Baze Malbus.

“Me, too,” Cassian agrees.

“You said…” Jyn swallows. “When Skywalker created that new x-wing squadron.”

“Rogue Squadron,” Cassian says, naming the new x-wing squadron that Jyn herself still cannot voice.

“Yeah,” she says. “And I said… Later, I said to you, that I felt like maybe we should’ve died. With the others, on Scarif.”

“I remember.”

“Do you remember what you said to me, then?”

Cassian blinks, and nods. “I said, ‘But we didn’t.’ And I said that all we can do for them, now, is to make them proud.”

Jyn nods. “Yeah. And I agree. We can… We can make their sacrifice worth it.”

“I think they’d think their sacrifice already is, Jyn.”

The Death Star has been destroyed for almost a year now, too.

“I know,” Jyn says. “But we can still…”

She sighs.

“I want to work, on the day of,” she decides. “I want to do _something_. Something loud, and difficult. Something that will be productive, but not quiet, so I don’t… So I don’t get caught up in thinking about them, and how they should still be here, too.”

She knows she’s going to be angry on the day of; she’s going to want something to smash, to break. She’s going to be thinking about the others, and how their lives were cut short by the Empire. She’s going to think about how the rest of Rogue One should be on Hoth, too.

Bodhi, flying an x-wing over the snow-covered mountains.

Baze, spending hours defrosting the missile turrets.

Chirrut, wielding Luke Skywalker’s lightsaber.

K-2SO, probably horrified that Jyn and Cassian live in the same room.

“We could volunteer to help dig out the western tunnels,” Cassian says. “General Dodonna’s been pushing for an expansion, even though it will go beyond the range of the shields.”

Jyn considers this.

“Digging?” She checks.

“With pick axes. Tearing, and cutting ice. Very brutal stuff.”

It’s a perfect way for her to be productive, and also pour out her fury.

“That’s what I want to do,” Jyn decides.

Cassian smiles. “I’ll tell Leia that’s what we’ll be doing, then.”

“Cass, you don’t have to dig with me,” Jyn says. “I’m sure there’s something you’d rather--”

“I want to be with you, that day,” Cassian says. “I want to be able to see you, and know that we really made it.”

That their survival is real.

Jyn thinks that she’ll want to be near him, too, that day.

“That sounds nice,” she says.

“It does,” Cassian agrees.

“Can we eat now?”

Cassian laughs, but nods, getting to his feet. “As long as you wash your hands first. I _just_ cleaned our room.”

Jyn looks down, and realizes that her hands are dark with grease stains.

“Yeah, fair,” she agrees, standing up.

Cassian wraps an arm around her shoulders, leading her out of the repair shop.

* * *

The next two days pass quickly, like they did a year previously.

Jyn is overwhelmed by flashes of memory.

Of the cold brown sand of Jedha.

The colors of the Holy City.

Bodhi’s dazed eyes.

Saw’s battered body.

The building collapsing all around them.

Saw telling her to save herself.

Cassian’s hand tight around her arm.

Baze’s quiet devastation on the shuttle to Eadu.

Chirrut’s knuckles turning pale as he gripped his staff.

Cassian’s mouth thinning as he looked at her.

The rain pouring on Eadu.

The confident way Cassian assembled his sniper rifle.

The sound of the water falling onto her poncho.

Her father’s face.

The shuttle exploding behind him.

The fires around her, casting shadow on her father’s dying body.

 _I have so much to tell you_.

Cassian’s tense face, leaning over her.

* * *

Cassian’s tense face, looking at her, on the morning of the one year anniversary of her father’s death.

“Do you want to talk about him?”

Her feelings towards her father are so complicated.

She misses him. And she’s furious with him.

She loves him. And she hates him.

“No,” Jyn says, and that is all the recognition they give Galen Erso.

* * *

The memories continue.

The quiet of the Imperial shuttle.

Chirrut’s hand in hers.

The way Cassian’s eyes flared into life when she called him a stormtrooper.

Bodhi’s stuttering breath.

The coldness of the cargo bay under the shuttle.

Cassian, sitting next to her in the dark.

 _I’m sorry about your father_.

 _I’m so tired of people leaving_.

The gray scarf around Cassian’s neck.

The green of Yavin 4.

Mon Mothma’s sad eyes.

Bail Organa’s tense shoulders.

The feeling of loss, of hopelessness.

Bodhi’s determination to fight, still.

Chirrut and Baze’s calm agreement.

The soldiers of Rogue one.

 _I couldn’t live with myself if I gave up now_.

The way he stared at her, his barely-there smile.

 _Welcome home_.

The life in the Imperial shuttle, the anxiety, the hope.

 _May the force be with us_.

K-2SO, calmly getting them ready to fly.

 _Rogue. Rogue One_.

Cassian crouching in front of her, so certain, so confident.

_Are you with me?_

His dark eyes, his devotion.

 _All the way_.

The beach on Scarif.

The citadel.

The tower.

 _Stardust_.

K-2SO’s shaking voice.

_Climb!_

The blaster shots echoing around her.

_Keep going!_

Cassian’s fall.

_Cassian!_

Her long, lonely climb.

The sky, alight with ships and battle.

The TIE fighter, shooting at her.

Her aching body.

The man in white.

 _You, on the other hand, will die, with the Rebellion_.

The man in white, falling.

Cassian, leaning on a pillar, panting, _alive_.

 _Leave it. That’s it_.

His body, shaking, his arm around her shoulders.

 _Someone’s out there_.

The elevator, Cassian’s exhausted eyes.

 _You came back_.

His stuttered breathing.

 _You needed me. I wasn’t going to leave you_.

Pressing her forehead to his.

 _Thank you_.

The beach, crowded with dead bodies, with smoke.

Cassian collapsing to the sand.

The light, rushing towards them.

 _Your father would be proud of you, Jyn_.

Cassian’s hand, warm in hers.

 _I’m proud of us_.

* * *

Too much, and not enough.

* * *

On the morning of the anniversary of Rogue One, Jyn wakes up to see Cassian, fully dressed, sitting on the edge of the bed, and watching her.

“Hi,” he says, quietly.

“Hi,” she returns.

He has an odd look on his face, one she hasn’t seen before, and so she reaches out, and takes his hand.

He sighs, very deeply, at her touch.

“Do you want to talk about it?” she asks.

Cassian frowns at her. “You don’t want to.”

“Not really,” Jyn admits. “But that wasn’t what I asked. I asked if _you_ want to talk. I can listen.”

Cassian considers this, his eyes darting over her face, and she wonders what he’s looking for, exactly.

He seems to find it.

He nods once, face tight, and then he lies down, curling his body around Jyn’s, pulling her close to him.

“They were my friends,” he murmurs. “The ten Alliance rebels I took to Scarif. They were the people who’d confided in me that they sometimes wished they did _good_ , that a mission could result in something unquestionably good, not morally gray, or morally dubious. The people who just wanted to be good, for someone to forgive them, to make them think all the terrible things they did was worth it.” He sighs, and looks at Jyn. “Sometimes, I think they were the best of the Alliance. The best of us. And they’re all dead now.”

“You want to do good, too, and you’re still here,” Jyn whispers, brushing her fingers against his face.

“I’m not sure why,” Cassian admits. “Why we got to live, when they didn’t. You remember Melshi?”

Of course she does. She remembers them all.

“He got me out of Wobani,” she says.

“Yes,” Cassian confirms. “Before he left for Wobani, he came and found me, to tell me Kay was going with them. And he said… He said that he was glad he got to run that mission, the one to rescue Liana Hallik. He said that he thought breaking a young woman out of an Imperial labor camp was an undeniably good thing. He was very pleased about it. He didn’t get a lot of _good_ work to do.”

“I kicked him,” Jyn admits, and Cassian smiles.

“I know. He told me about that, before we left for Scarif. Seemed almost offended when I told him that, no, you had not kicked me.”

Jyn laughs, and Cassian presses a kiss to her palm, her hand resting on his cheek.

“On Scarif,” he tells her, “Before we went into the Citadel… Melshi wished me good luck, and told me that no one else could possibly pull it off. Stealing the Death Star plans. He had a lot of faith in me, though I don’t know why. We’d known each other for… For eight years, but we never really worked closely together. Not often, at least. But he was so confident in me. I don’t know what to do with that.”

“He was a good friend,” Jyn murmurs.

“A good man,” Cassian agrees. “He was from Corellia, originally, I think. That was where I first met him, at least. He would’ve hated Hoth.”

“He could join the club,” Jyn says, and Cassian smiles.

She rubs her thumb against his cheek.

“Tell me about the others,” she says, because she knows he wants to, because she can see the ghosts peeking out at her from his dark eyes.

“I went on a mission to Saleucami with Lieutenant Sefla and Private Basteren about seven months before Rogue One,” he says. “Basteren was very new at the time, and he was assigned to my team to learn, to see how Alliance squads worked. He was enthusiastic, and listened to everything I said. We went to Saleucami for reconnaissance, but Sefla had the brilliant idea to steal medical supplies while we were there. It’s Saleucami’s biggest export, and we had an opportunity, and so we did. Those medical supplies saved many lives, in the months after.”

Jyn nods, remembering Arro Basteren, his wide eyes and freckled skin, and Taidu Sefla, with his bright smile, who had been the one to name her Sergeant during the flight to Scarif.

“Private Calfor was a bit of a demolitions expert,” Cassian says. “He always claimed to have three grenades on him at all times, and to be honest, I don’t think he was joking. He used to raise bloodhounds, and he talked about them constantly. Corporal Tonc was very quiet, and didn’t like to talk about himself, so he and I got along very well. But he paid attention to everyone. He told me about a secret Temple on Yavin 4 he’d stumbled across one day, because he’d seen me climbing another Temple, and gathered that it was something I did in my spare time, and thought I’d like to know of another one. He was right, but I didn’t get to see it; we had to evacuate Yavin 4 before I could find it. That seems fitting.”

Corporal Tonc, with the thin moustache, who’d hovered close to Bodhi’s side when the squads were readying themselves on Scarif. Private Calfor, with a beard not unlike Cassian’s, who she remembers handing thermal detonators out to everyone on the shuttle.

“Corporal Rostok was the strongest man I’d ever seen,” Cassian tells Jyn. “He was nicknamed ‘Rostok the Rock’ around base for it; there were rumors he could smash boulders with his bare hands, and I almost believe it. Corporal Mefran preferred fighting in jungle more than anywhere else; I suspect his homeworld was a jungle one, though I don’t know for sure. He volunteered to cut back the jungles around base on Yavin 4; he’d spend hours and hours out in the brush, and come back with the most satisfied grin. Corporal Casrich had fought in the Clone Wars, for the Separatists, as a very young man. We used to talk about our memories of the Separatists, because we were two of the very few who actually had some appreciation for them.”

Corporal Rostok, who, despite his terrifying size, had one of the kindest smiles Jyn had ever seen. Corporal Mefran, who Jyn thinks was the oldest member of Rogue One, with thick lines around his mouth and forehead, his hairline receding. Corporal Casrich, with haunted blue eyes, and a limp in his step.

“Corporal Pao,” Cassian says, and pauses. “Pao was only a nickname, but his real name was astoundingly long. I only ever heard it once, and didn’t memorize it. He was always the first to rush into any battle; the more dangerous, the more eager he’d be for it. Private Kappehl only joined up about a month or so before Scarif. I was the one who taught him how to shoot, how to use a blaster. He was very nervous about it, but he told me that the Empire had killed his mother, had destroyed his hometown, and he wanted revenge. It was something I could understand. I wanted to help him get it.”

Pao, a Drabatan, with a grin that was all teeth and fearlessness. Private Kappehl, with soft brown eyes, and a deep nervous frown, who had barely spoken on the flight to Scarif.

Cassian sighs, shaking his head. “You know the rest.”

K-2SO. Bodhi Rook. Chirrut Imwe. Baze Malbus.

Jyn Erso. Cassian Andor.

She thinks that Bodhi, Chirrut, and Baze will always be mysteries to them, since they don’t have them here to talk to, since they don’t know anyone who knew them.

Cassian, of course, can talk about K-2SO.

And Jyn knows Cassian very well.

“Do you want to talk about Kay?” she asks.

Because she knows that the loss of K-2SO, for Cassian, is heavier than the loss of his other friends. Because he didn’t know them as well as K-2SO. Because he hadn’t gone through the death of the woman he loved with them at his side, because he hadn’t had a near-death experience due to them, because he hadn’t had to start over again with them.

“No,” Cassian says, shaking his head. “Not today. Thanks for the offer, though.”

“Anytime,” Jyn says.

“I know you don’t want to talk about them, so I really appreciate--”

“It’s not that,” Jyn interjects, quickly. “It’s just… I’m so _angry_. That they had to die at all. And I’m… I’m still not sure why they died, and we didn’t. I am… I’m glad we survived, I really am, but somedays, I…”

“Survivor’s guilt,” Cassian says, and she nods. “I get that, too.”

“How do we deal with that?”

“We make them proud,” Cassian says, as he has before. He kisses her quickly, and sits up, climbing off the bed.

“Get dressed,” he says. “We have a tunnel to dig. You can get your anger out there.”

“I can think of nothing better,” Jyn says.

* * *

Everyone steers clear of Jyn.

She’s not sure why, or how, exactly. She wonders if Cassian has sent out some kind of base-wide memo, urging the rebels to leave her alone, to not come up to her to offer condolences, or worse, congratulate her on the one year anniversary of her great achievement of stealing the Death Star plans.

She and Cassian walk through the base, and people seem to step out of their way, avoiding her eyes, darting down side corridors to not pass her. Jyn keeps her head high, but her eyes distant, focusing only on the white ice walls of the base, Cassian a darker blur at her side.

They reach the western tunnels, and find the tools other teams have been using to cut through the solid crystalline ice of Hoth. No one else is scheduled to work here today, and Jyn is not sure whether she has to thank Cassian or Leia Organa for that; probably both.

For the moment, it is painfully quiet, the only noise coming from her and Cassian’s breaths.

Jyn twirls a pick axe in her hand as Cassian watches.

She looks at the wall of white, and thinks of stormtroopers, and of Imperial Walkers.

She looks at the wall of ice and snow, and thinks of the man in white.

The man who’d killed her mother. The man who’d been on Eadu, when her father died. The man who’d almost killed her.

The man who Cassian had killed, to save her.

She turns to Cassian now. “Thank you, Cassian.”

He frowns. “For what?”

“For surviving,” she says, because this is easier to say than _For everything_.

He seems to infer as much anyway, and he smiles.

She looks away from him, and back to the wall of white.

She raises the pick axe, and slams it into the ice.

At first, she is a hurricane of anger, of pent-up aggression, of sheer rage. Cassian, wisely, stands back, and watches her in silence, arms crossed over his chest. She hurls the pick axe into the wall, again and again, gasping a little with the force of her hits, gasping a little with the fury inside her.

She _hates_ the Empire.

Never more so than on this day.

She smashes the axe into the snow, and with each hit, she remembers a name.

 _Smash_. Lyra Erso.

 _Smash_. Arro Basteren.

 _Smash_. Bodhi Rook.

 _Smash_. Saw Gerrera.

She lands blows, repeatedly, until the names run out; and then she starts over, and goes again.

She is so furious, so angry that all these people, all these good people, are dead.

 _Smash_. Ruescott Melshi.

 _Smash_. K-2SO.

 _Smash_. Chirrut Imwe.

Cassian lets her do this for about fifteen minutes, before he throws caution to the wind, steps closer, and seizes her arm.

“Jyn,” he breathes, his grip sure and almost-bruising around her elbow, to get her attention. “Jyn, you need to take a break. You’re going to hurt yourself.”

“I’m not finished,” Jyn hisses, and she blinks, and realizes the wall of ice in front of her is actually cracking, and that there are tears in her eyes that are distorting the picture.

“I know,” he assures her. “But you’ll strain your arms, or worse, at the rate you’re going. Slow down. Take a break.”

“I _can’t_ ,” she snaps, and her voice is all emotion, is raw and bleeding, and Cassian’s eyes widen with a look of pity, and for a moment, she hates him as much as she hates the Empire.

She turns on him, the pick axe still in her hands, and though it makes Cassian take a quick step back, he doesn’t let go of her arm.

“Don’t look at me like that,” she hisses at him, practically snarling.

“Jyn,” Cassian says, voice soft, and Jyn suddenly realizes how quiet the hall is, save for the crunch of their boots in the snow, and her ragged breathing.

“Don’t _pity me_ ,” she says, and her voice rises, and she’s yelling. “Not _you_ , don’t you _dare_ \--”

“ _Kriff_ , I’m not, I’m just…”

“You’re just _what_ , Cassian?” Jyn yells. “ _Sorry?_ Well, I’m sorry, too! That’s the whole kriffing problem, isn’t it? We’re both sorry, and we’re both impossibly, ridiculously, _terribly_ alive! I _need_ to do this, I need to do something for _them_ , for the ones who died, for the _better men_ who died, and at the moment the only thing I can do is carve out this _farking_ tunnel, so get out of my _way_ , Andor!”

Cassian watches her as she gives this speech, his face still so sorry, so sympathetic.

And then he moves, releasing her arm.

She doesn’t have a second to celebrate this liberation, to turn back to the wall of ice, because while Cassian does drop her arm, he immediately turns to her, and wraps his arms tightly around her.

It’s a little awkward, because he has to raise his own arm to avoid the pick axe, which Jyn has not let go. He has one arm tight around her shoulders, and the other around her waist, and he tucks her head under his chin, so she can feel him swallow.

“You can hate me, if that makes it easier,” he tells her. “If you need something immediate to hate, you can hate me. That’s fine.”

And this is so ridiculous to her.

“Why would I hate you?” Jyn asks, and her voice is still all red-hot fury, all snarl, and she tries to wriggle out of Cassian’s arms, but he holds firm, and doesn’t move an inch.

“Because I’m the only one left,” he tells her, voice still so soft, and it only makes her want to fight more. “Because you’re not sure I should’ve survived. You’re not sure that you should have survived, either, but you don’t need anyone’s permission to hate yourself.”

And with these words, she deflates.

She hears the pick axe hit the icy ground, fallen out of her slacked grip.

She can hear another noise, a strange ripping sound.

A moment later, she realizes it’s her.

She’s sobbing.

She presses her face further into Cassian’s jacket, and she sobs.

He doesn’t say anything, but his arms tighten around her, and she thinks she can feel his lips on her forehead, and this is a new, unspoken language for her, but she thinks she understands it.

She doesn’t know how long they stand there, how long she cries, how long Cassian rubs her back and says nothing.

Eventually, she pulls herself together, stepping out of his arms, and rubbing her scarf over her face.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” she blubbers, feeling very self-conscious, and very ashamed.

She isn’t self-conscious or ashamed of crying in front of Cassian; it’s something she’s definitely done before. She’s self-conscious and ashamed of yelling at him, of saying--

“You’re as good as them,” she whispers. “They… they were good men, but they weren’t better than you.”

Cassian smiles, wryly. “They were. It’s true, and it’s fine.”

“No, they weren’t--”

“It’s very kind of you to try and change my mind, but you won’t,” Cassian says, sharply. “I believe you when you say you’re sorry for saying it, and I appreciate the apology. But you are also right. They were better than me.”

“Better than me, too.”

“You haven’t done nearly as many terrible things as I have, Jyn,” Cassian murmurs. “You still deserve to live.”

She stares.

“What the _hell_ , Cassian.”

He sighs, and there is clear regret in his face, though Jyn thinks the only regret is him voicing such an awful thing to her.

“You still don’t know everything about me,” he says, which she thinks is incredibly insufficient, as far as explanations go.

“But I _know_ you, Cass,” Jyn says, her gloved hands moving into fists at her sides, and while she doesn’t want to fight Cassian, exactly, she wants to fight whatever has made him hate himself so much. “I know exactly who you are, and I _love_ you--”

“I know,” he says, quickly. “I know, Jyn. And I’m grateful.”

“Do you not believe me?”

“No, I do.”

But there is a _something_ in his tone. Something she doesn’t like.

“You think…” She pauses, and gathers her words together. Cassian is more of an orator than her, and she envies his ability to speak so fluidly, so thoughtfully. “You think… I wouldn’t. If I knew everything you’ve done.”

Cassian smiles more widely, but it’s grim.

“Hm. You do know me pretty well.”

“ _Kriff_ , Cassian,” Jyn says, voice torn between irritation and resignation. “Why can’t you just… just…”

“Just?”

“Be happy. Let yourself be happy.”

“I’m pretty happy,” he allows. “You make me happy, Jyn. But I… You can’t expect me to be happy with who I am, and what I’ve done. I’m okay with it all, but I’m not… I’m not glad for it. But that’s fine. I’m fine. I still have a lot to do for the Rebellion, in the war. So I’m fine.”

 _So I’ll keep going_.

She knows of a handful of terrible things Cassian has done, including killing twenty unarmed prisoners with a sniper rifle at Lemniscate.

She remembers Asori Joshi’s soft, sad voice, as she recounted it.

“ _It’s something I don’t think Cassian has ever fully gotten over_.”

And then there’s Cassian’s murder of eleven-year-old Sebastian Bain, on Coruscant.

Again, she remembers Asori’s voice.

“ _I don’t think he was ever truly the same again, after_.”

And Ethan Bain’s pain-filled voice, of seeing Cassian afterwards.

“ _I attacked him. And he just let it happen. I think he wanted to die, there. I think he wasn’t sure he could live with himself, after._ ”

And then there’s Cassian’s murder of his own brother.

She remembers Cassian’s own voice, describing it to her.

“ _I’ve killed my own family. My own flesh and blood. That’s a special brand of monstrous. The kind of abhorrent thing you’d expect of the Empire_.”

And when she’d told Cassian she was okay with all of this, these horrific acts, he’d looked at her so sadly.

“ _There are things about me, things I have done, that I can never tell you. For my sanity, or because I’ve been ordered not to by the Alliance_.”

“Is that…” She swallows. “Is the war… Is that the only thing? Keeping you…?”

_Keeping you with me?_

_Keeping you alive?_

_Do you have nothing else to live for, but the war?_

“They were better men than me,” Cassian says, and this is both a non-answer and as detailed an answer as she needs.

“What happens to you, at the end of the war?”

Cassian snorts, the noise a shock in the quiet, cold corridor.

“There’s no end of the war, Jyn,” he says, and she almost wants to call his voice cruel in tone. It’s dismissive, certainly. “There’s no way I survive the end of the war. Not with what I do.”

_I couldn’t live with myself, if I gave up now._

“You might,” Jyn snaps. “I might. We both might. You need to understand that. You need to decide, soon, because I can’t--”

She closes her eyes.

 _Because I can’t deal with you surviving the war only to kill yourself_.

“I wouldn’t do that to you,” Cassian says, softly.

“You would,” she says, just as quietly.

 _You do not have to kill everything you touch, Cassian_.

“No, I--”

“I’m okay with you loving the Rebellion more than you love me,” Jyn says. “But I’m not okay with you hating yourself more than you love me.”

That finally seems to make him lose his words. He stands there, still, and only looks at her.

She reaches down, and grabs the pick axe.

She holds it out to him.

“Your turn,” she says.

Cassian hesitates, and she knows he wants to talk about this more, but she’s so tired, tired from her ruthless attack on the ice wall, tired from her sobs, tired from his silent self-loathing.

Maybe he can gain something from brutality, like she does.

Maybe he can find some satisfaction in it, something more than his own hatred.

He takes the pick axe from her, shrugging off his parka, so he’s standing there in his thinner jacket.

She steps back, and he grips the axe in his hands, approaching the wall of snow.

She watches as he raises the axe, and swings it, sending a thick shard of glass-like ice plummeting to the ground.

She watches as he swings, again, and again, and again.

He is lethal, and he is beautiful, and she wants to cry.

* * *

Cassian does not cook dinner.

She knows he planned to, had watched him earlier in the week store various ingredients in the tiny conservator in their room, but they leave the western corridor (having made a remarkable dent in the ice, having carved out a pretty good stretch of tunnel) and return to the main part of Echo Base, their faces flushed, hair sweaty, and Cassian snags her sleeve as she makes to walk past the mess hall.

“You should eat something,” he tells her.

“You should too,” she replies.

He nods, and follows her into the mess hall.

They receive stares, and Jyn knows they both look terrible, drained and exhausted. She knows she’ll have to shower, but she really just wants to climb into bed and sleep for a thousand years.

They get their rations, and then they leave, choosing not to linger among their fellow soldiers.

Jyn can’t deal with their sympathy, their hushed admiration.

She thinks it wouldn’t be hyperbole to say she hates everything today.

They reach their room, walking inside in complete silence.

She looks around the room, as Cassian sets his rations on his desk, and pulls his parka off. She looks at the little table on her side of the bed, and sees the projector containing the hologram of her with her parents.

It’s off at the moment, but she has the image memorized.

Herself, so young, laughing with delight.

Her mother, her soft smile. Her father, tickling Jyn’s cheek.

She thinks of their short-lived happiness.

She worries that all happiness is short-lived.

She will take what she can get.

Jyn drops her rations on the bed, and then begins to strip.

She hears Cassian’s exhalation of surprise when she turns around to face him, completely naked, save for her kyber crystal necklace.

He stares at her.

“You should shower,” she says. “You’re sweaty, and gross.”

“Yeah,” he says, blinking slowly.

She rolls her eyes.

“You should shower with me, Cass,” she says, because he’s looking at her blankly.

“Oh.” He hesitates, frowning at her. “Are you sure?”

By that, he means, _Aren’t you still upset with me?_

She sighs.

“We’re going to talk more, later,” she says. “And I am… Not mad at you, but… Annoyed, I guess. And sad. But right now, today, I just want to be near you.”

 _We’re still alive_ , she thinks.

Even if they’re not sure they should’ve survived, they can’t deny that they _did_.

In spite of the odds. In spite of it all.

Cassian looks at her, and then he nods.

He pulls off his jacket, and she turns and walks away, to turn on the shower.

The water runs over her skin, and it is shockingly hot as always, compared to the frigidity of the rest of the base. She stands there, her eyes closed, and lets the water hit her head, lets it run over her face, down her eyelids, past her chin. She lets it turn her skin pink, lets it shape her, lets it help her pretend that she is somewhere else, that she is peaceful.

Cassian doesn’t say anything when he joins her.

But he puts his hands on her face, thumbs just under her eyes, and she opens them to look at him.

He blinks at her, his hair falling into his eyes.

“I’m sorry,” he says.

 _Talking later_ seems to be _talking now_.

“Why are you sorry, Cassian?”

He exhales sharply, water dripping down his slightly crooked nose.

“I’m sorry that you think I hate myself more than I love you,” he says.

“You do, though,” Jyn replies, voice soft over the running water. “You have yet to prove to me, to show me, that I’m wrong. I’ve always known you loved the cause more, and that’s fine with me, I’ve said that before, and meant it. But I…”

She sighs, and looks away from Cassian’s dark eyes.

“I didn’t realize how much your love for the Rebellion was tied to your hatred for yourself,” she says.

“But I told you that.”

She blinks, and realizes he’s right.

On Fest. Standing in front of the graves of his family.

_“You’re good, Cassian.”_

_“I try to be. That’s the truth of it. I try._ _I knew, when I left Fest again, that I was sacrificing a lot of myself. That I was choosing the cause over my conscience, my morality, my sense of goodness. I decided it was a sacrifice I was willing to make. I left Fest when I was twenty-two, and the years that followed… I lost a lot of me. I lost myself, piece by piece. I became an assassin, a murderer, a thief, a torturer. The worst of humanity. Unforgivable. Hopeless.”_

“You help me,” Cassian says suddenly, dragging Jyn out of the memory. “You give me hope for myself, make me think I can be better. I… I do mostly good work, now. Better work than I used to. And that’s everything, Jyn. Everything to me.”

“But you don’t think you, yourself, are…”

“I’m hopeful that it’s possible for my life, my work, to be worth it,” he says, quietly. “To be judged well. To be validated. But that… I’m not sure about _myself_. Who I am.”

Jyn nods.

She doesn’t agree, but she understands him.

She knows that’s what he really wants from her. Understanding.

Forgiveness.

“I’m sorry,” he says again, and she thinks she knows what he’s really apologizing for.

Finally.

He’s always warned her that he will put the cause before her, one day.

And she’d thought she’d known what that meant.

She realizes now, though, that she hadn’t.

For the very first time, the first time since she saw him glaring at her in the conference room on Yavin 4, the first time since he kissed her, the first time since he told her that he loves her, she thinks that Cassian Andor is going to leave her.

Not now. Not tomorrow. Not in a year, probably.

But one day.

One day she will ask of him something that differs from what the cause wants.

And she knows what he’s going to choose.

He’d told her so from the very start.

She blinks up at Cassian now.

_“Are you with me?”_

_“All the way.”_

And she realizes it was never a promise to _her_ , specifically.

It was a promise to be by her side as long as she fought for the same cause. As long as she wanted the same things. As long as the war raged on around them, he was going to stand next to her. He wouldn’t abandon her, as long as they fought together.

_“All the way.”_

_“Yeah. Okay. I believe you, Jyn.”_

But for her, it’d been a promise to stick with him through _everything_.

Not until the end.

But _through_ the end.

Cassian, she realizes, does not see anything beyond the end of the war.

And she does. She hopes for it. She thinks she’s earned it.

Of course he thinks differently.

 _I’ll help you_ , she thinks now, touching Cassian’s face, listening to his breathing. _You deserve to live past the end. You deserve more_. _You deserve a life after the end_.

She stretches up, and she kisses him.

He kisses her back instantly, desperately, and she knows it’s because he sees the end of them coming, that he thinks they are going to end before the war does, because the war has no end for him.

But _them_ , this slice of happiness he’s taken, does have an endpoint.

She wants to prove him wrong.

She’s going to try.

* * *

Cassian’s face smooths out when he sleeps.

She noticed it the very first time he fell asleep in front of her, on the ship on the way to Eadu from Jedha. She’d stood next to him, squished between the pilot’s chair and co-pilot’s chair, and talked to K-2SO about what he knew of Eadu, what to expect.

And she’d looked at Cassian, at his smooth face, the way his eyes moved under his eyelids, indicating he was dreaming.

His eyes are the only thing that moves when he sleeps.

He keeps his face still, his arms and legs immobile, his chest the only indicator of life, moving as he breathes. She knows his stillness is due to his years of paranoia, his years at the Royal Imperial Academy, constantly afraid he’d be found out. She knows he’s slept in dangerous places, in bunks on ships on hundreds of planets, under wartorn skies.

Cassian sleeps like the dead.

 _Like the dead he dreams of being_ , she thinks, and instantly regrets the thought.

Maybe his dreams are pleasant. Maybe he dreams of good things, of his long-dead family, of his long-dead friends, of his long-dead love.

 _Like the dead he dreams of being_.

She curls up against him, and puts her hand over his chest, over his heart, feeling it thud against her palm.

 _I love you_ , she thinks, and she knows it might not be enough.

She looks at the scars that litter Cassian’s chest, scars from his twenty years of war, and thinks of how she’s always wanted the war to end.

For her, so she could have peace.

For Cassian, so he could have something more than war.

For both of them, so they could go home.

For the first time, she is afraid of the end of the war.

She is afraid of what it means.

It is the one year anniversary of Rogue One, and she is afraid of the war ending.

It is not a kind thing to think, especially on this day.

She presses herself to Cassian’s side, and holds his hand, as if she could anchor him through touch alone, as if she could convince him to stay, to follow her, subliminally.

When she dreams, she dreams that he dreams of her.

* * *

On the morning of the day after the one year anniversary of Rogue One, Jyn wakes up to see Cassian, fully dressed, sitting on the edge of the bed, and watching her.

“Hi,” he says, quietly.

“Hi,” she returns.

It is exactly like they’d woken up the day before.

Cassian still has an odd look on his face.

He takes her hand.

“Are we okay?”

Jyn thinks.

She could tell him the truth.

She could lie.

She could say something in between the two.

The future is constantly changing, is unknown to her, and to him.

He could die tomorrow. She could die in two years.

(They both should have died a year ago.)

(Sometimes, she thinks they did.)

(Sometimes, she thinks this weirdness, this halfway state she and Cassian exist in, is the result of them not dying when they should have.)

(Sometimes, the universe overcorrects itself.)

All Jyn knows for sure is that if the end is coming--

\--And not just the capital-E End--

\--And not just the end of the war--

\--But the end of Cassian waking up next to her, of Cassian kissing her, of Cassian checking in with her in between missions, of Cassian cooking dinner for her, of Cassian following her around base--

\--But the end of them--

\--That she will take what she can, just like she always has.

Home has always been a fleeting, intangible thing.

At the moment, Cassian is home. She can survive losing her home again. And he knows it.

She doesn’t know the future.

Maybe she can help him change his mind.

Maybe they still have time.

Maybe the war never ends.

Maybe they die before it does.

She knows she has today. She has Cassian sitting next to her, holding her hand, and looking at her with wide, warm eyes, and a soft smile.

She has Cassian, in love with her.

So, to his question--

(She could tell him the truth.)

(She could lie.)

(She could say something in between the two.)

She says, “Yeah. We will be.”

**Author's Note:**

> Some of Cassian's memories of the Rogue One squad members came from canon details, while others were made up by me. Some of the ROGUE ONE flashback were scenes made up in GRAY AREAS.
> 
> This was originally going to be the start of the Sernpidal story in this series (Pt. 1 being GRAY AREAS, Pt. 2 being YOU MUST REMEMBER THIS, and BLOOD BROTHERS as the weird bastard child that doesn't really fit anywhere) but as I was writing I realized what the Sernpidal story was actually going to be, and that this one-shot-ish thing is here to help bridge the gap: the title of this story works for Jyn, and also for the reader.
> 
> Because the thesis of the next, longer story is basically "The war ends for Jyn; the war never ends for Cassian" and what that might mean. Because as I set out to answer the question "What happens to Cassian Andor after the war?" I realized the answer is that Cassian Andor would never survive the war. But since he did in this series, the answer becomes that the war never ends for Cassian. He transitions with it, instead. He's going to follow it into the Cold War. And I am not convinced Jyn would, which is totally understandable.
> 
> So if that's the thesis of the next story, the thesis of this one is that Rogue One was the place in time where Jyn and Cassian were on the same page. Their lives leading up to it were similar, but separate; their lives after it are going to begin to diverge, and it's a challenge for them.
> 
> The good news is I am writing the next story; I'm 20k in, and it looks like it'll have three "parts" that come out to, IN THEORY, 60k. This series has a habit of exceeding my expectations; GRAY AREAS was never supposed to top 90k. So we'll see. But I'm writing it, and diving back into Cassian's head, and generally enjoying myself.
> 
> Sorry for the long note! Just trying to explain the Melancholy behind this Entirely Unasked For thing. Hopefully I didn't bum you out. This is just where this series is going, based off these characters as I have come to understand them. None of this came out of left field, to me; all the clues to Cassian's perspective, and Jyn's, are given in the first two parts of this series.
> 
> I'd love to hear from you, either here or on tumblr; theputterer there too.


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